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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32173 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Of course, one can claim that the absence of indignity inherent to second-class citizenship is worth all that

Brings to mind an old quote from my own banana-state country: “I would rather have a government run like hell by Filipinos than a government run like heaven by Americans.” - Manuel Quezon, President of the Republic

...but tellingly, the quote is followed by "But that is not an admission that a government run by Filipinos will be a government run like hell. Much less can it be an admission that a government run by Americans or by the people of any other foreign country, for that matter, can ever be a government run like heaven."

(A fairly popular sentiment among most formerly colonized peoples, I gather)

You say there isn't dignity in self-imposed squalor, and fine, but as you notice, there isn't one in colonial servitude either. And sometimes the yearning for freedom—on the value of its own context, independent of any potential downstream QoL effects—is strong enough to override everything else.

But more generally, the South Africans had just enough leeway to intuitively place the majority of the blame on whitey, given the self-evidently oppressive nature of apartheid. It followed fairly intuitively then that racial emancipation would be synonymous with economic: if we can just kick whitey out, everything will be fine. That was wrong, but in hindsight, there wasn't any way for them to have thought otherwise! Any, however justifiable and actually-true, argument based on HBD would be (understandably) seen as colonialist apologia, coming from loftily high colonizers who deign to redirect blame to justify their dastardly wicked oppression. So freedom alone seemed a convincing enough antidote to all the social ills—now that it might not be, it's not like there's any coming back to colonialism or apartheid, even in the event most black south Africans would prefer it: you've burned all the bridges.

And in the same vein, modern day whining is mostly generalized xenophobic sentiment, but cloaked in enough anti-colonialist lingo to capitalize on Third Worldist and BLM-type "anti-racist" sympathies... and with similarly enough wiggle room to be intuitively understandable and not-wrong-on-its-face: apartheid was all-encompassing and fairly recent enough—and history does have consequences—to be the scapegoat for South Africa's failed-state-tendencies.

(A fairly popular sentiment among most formerly colonized peoples, I gather)

Also known amongst colonizers too:

Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them [T.E. Lawrence]

if we can just kick whitey out, everything will be fine. That was wrong, but in hindsight, there wasn't any way for them to have thought otherwise!

Of course there was. Numerous examples where whitey got kicked out and everything wasn't fine.

South Africa went a lot farther south, relatively, compared to lots of African countries that kicked whitey out- and the seriously bad cases had civil wars and genocides as extenuating circumstances.

In case it isn't clear, I am not advocating for reinstatement of apartheid. Admittedly I do not have strong feelings either way, blacks oppressing whites right now is not morally better in my book, but what does it matter.

There are less extreme options, though.

On 4 August 1972, Amin declared that Britain would need to take on the responsibility for caring for British subjects who were of Indian origin,[3] accusing them of "sabotaging Uganda's economy and encouraging corruption".[2] The deadline for British subjects to leave was confirmed as three months, which came to mean 8 November. On 9 August, the policy was expanded to include citizens of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.[3] The position of the 23,000 Indians who had been granted Ugandan citizenship (and in particular those who held no other citizenship) was less clear. Not originally included, on 19 August, they were seemingly added to the list, before being re-exempted three days later following international protest. Many chose to leave rather than endure further intimidation, with only 4,000 known to have stayed.[3] Exemptions for certain professions were added, then later removed.[3][2]

«The Indians only milked the cow, but they did not feed it to yield more milk. There are now Black faces in every shop and industry. All the big cars in Uganda are now driven by Africans, and not the former bloodsuckers. The rest of Africa can learn from us.»

At the time of their deportation Indians owned 90% of the country's businesses and accounted for 90% of Uganda's tax revenue. The real value of salaries and wages plummeted by 90% in less than a decade following the expulsion, and although some of these businesses were handed over to native Ugandans this was ineffective as most did not know how to run them. Uganda's industrial sector which was seen as the backbone of the economy was damaged due to the lack of skilled workers.

Thousands of Indians returned to Uganda starting in 1986 when Yoweri Museveni assumed power. Museveni criticized Amin's policies and invited the Indians to return.[26][8] According to Museveni, "Gujaratis have played a lead role in Uganda's social and industrial development. I knew that this community can do wonders for my country and they have been doing it for last many decades." The Indians resurfacing in Uganda have helped rebuild the economy of Uganda, and are financially well settled.[8][27]

Despite making up less than 1% of the population, they are estimated to contribute up to 65% of the country's tax revenues.[2] Sudhir Ruparelia, who is of Indian origin, is the richest man in Uganda and has an estimated fortune of $1 billion.[2]

Yes, it is trivial to see where Idi Amin (by all accounts a horrible human being) was coming from in this case. He's probably even correct to an extent – Uganda is still dirt poor, Indians or no, whereas Indians themselves are «financially well settled»; this can't feel okay to natives.
But recognizing that someone has to pay taxes to keep the system running, denouncing racism, and guaranteeing whitey an equal measure of legal protection and opportunity for political and administrative representation, would certainly help South African fortunes, I believe. (It's amazing to me how many people still don't want to leave South Africa, despite being able to).

This would come at a price of the collective whitey becoming disproportionately powerful, of course – if through less unfair means. Which is unacceptable. So they will keep digging and doubling down, until their power grid and other vital infrastructure properly collapses and their governance degrades to Haitian levels, probably. Maybe it's still worth it.

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